India - A cleansing bath in Varanasi

"Brace yourself. You're about to enter one of the most blindingly colourful, unrelentingly chaotic and unapologetically indiscreet places on earth. Varanasi takes no prisoners..." (LP)

And it is true, Varanasi - the beating heart of the Hindu universe - is intense. And hot, this time we had 47 degree. If you think that the city is a big tourist trap, well I don't think it is. Yes there are souvenirs, but they are for the pilgrims, not for the few Western tourists who usually don't understand too much of the rituals anyway. I haven't been to Rome, but from what I have heard, this is much more real. People come to pray and immerse themselves in the holy spirit of the city.

The interesting bit is the Old City along the Ganges, the holy river. Here you find one ghat besides the next one - all along the wateredge with a lot of stairs. Most ghats are used for bathing, but there are also some burning ghats where bodies are being cremated and the ashes spread in the river. Every night there is a big 'puja' - an offering with prayers. Thousands of pilgrims come for that, light a floating candle on the river, take their bath and pray. The Old City itself is a maze of little backstreet even too small for a rickshaw - well but never to small for a cow.

And no, I didn't take a bath in the Ganges. If, then I would probably not be able to write as the water is freaking toxic and full of rubbish - I guess a strong belief kills bacteria...
more images

The Ganges with its 80 ghats.

'Boat, you want boat?'
 - there is no lack of boatsmen who take you around for R100 ($2) an hour

Actually yoga in water is not that easy

Once the sun rises - at 5am - pilgrims of all age...

...and condition...

...and shape, gather along the river to bath, pray...
(by the way, watch the guy in the back - he is cleaning his tongue with a string)

...and fish (would you eat the fish?)...

...fight with the feral dogs...

...watch other swimmers...

...and wash their clothes.

Mixed bath today

Once the sun goes down, pilgrims start to gather for the puja

Flaoting candles, flowers and...well, yes, mostly rubbish.

Best seats are on boats

It is getting crowded quickly!

Boats are in demand

South Indian women shave their heads as an offering - I wonder what
happens to all the beautiful long black hair?

The burning ghat - they cremate bodies 24/7 here

The price of a cremation is determined by the amount and type of fire wood

With 47degree even the cows come to rest in the shade

Rapunzel, Rapunzel lass Dein Haar herunter - ah, no it's her saari

Nepal to India in 24 hours - strike, shitholes and touts

Travelling sounds glamorous, sometimes it is just not and you think about a nice day in the office with your freshly brewed late in your hand... The last 24 hours were hell. It started with an 'easy' 8 hours drive from Pokhara to the Nepali-Indian border for the 180km of potholes. While you drown in your own sweat - it is 35 degree here  you try to find a comfortable seating position - impossible for a none-Asian body. Each part of the old seat in front of you, hits you on every bloody bump of the road. The driver was racing against his competitor: who ever reaches a person waiting on the side first, can pick the person up and hence makes the money. As we had a couple of spare seats, he was on a mission. The bus had better times, that's what we discovered when we had a flat tyre. The tyres on the back were basically only running on half of the surface as massive flakes had already pealed off and the inner of the tyre was exposed - if it only stays with a flat tyre... Not to think of a blown tyre while we are racing around the narrow hairpin curves just blowing the horn as loud as you get...

8 hours later we come to a sudden stop 20km before the Indian-Nepali border: strike - rien ne va plus. The bus driver simply dropped us and said we have to find our own way. We, that were some 8 foreigners or so. We all wanted to go to the border, but walking 20km in 40 degree heat? No taxi, bus or cycle rickshaw wanted to take us. At the end we stopped a police car racing passed us. After a lengthy discussion, the police were willing to give us a lift. Do they want baksheesh? Actually not but what we didn't know is that we would become part of the prisoner move from the central jail to court. After we changed police cars the first time - at some district police station - and after we had to stay in the open pick-up for an hour in the direct sun, we realised that the bracelets of the Nepali group were actually hand cuffs. That also explained the gunmen sitting with us and watching the guys. OK great, just wait a little longer and then we ended up at the district court to drop the boys and finally made our way through some angry protesting crowds towards the border. It is 27 May, the last day for the government to have finished the constitution - get the hell out of here, there is some serious unrest on the horizon.  

Good bye Nepal - welcome India...welcome you touts!

4 hour later, we are in India - Welcome to tout central. 'Come here to change money' (there are no official changer at the border) so you get ripped off the first time - but we need money for the bus and they know we are desperate. The border town is one of these shit holes. Dirty, polluted and a lot of angry people around - just watch your bag. Then quick get a ticket for the night bus to Varanasi. Easily said as people storming to us and pulling us in some dubious travel agencies to sell us overpriced tickets for the express bus which is of course not existing. What is the option here, trying to buy it locally and then missing the only bus? We quickly realise that we paid four times the price and one Japanese guy almost starts a fight with one of the touts. But the tout has friends...and they are all around - not funny. We of course all ended up in the same bus - no express bus here. Once in our fine local bus the touts (our travel agent) come back to give us our tickets - well almost. Only to collect some more money from us for the bags - what a rubbish! We refuse to pay and he stops the bus and threatening us to throw out of the bus...They are twenty, we are 8... Do we really want to strand again? But this time 20km from the other side of the border and this time it is dark already. I learnt my lesson years ago when I almost got beaten up from some tuk tuk driver after I argued for a dollar - swallow it and take it easy, it is a dollar. Easily said in this wreck of the bus which gearbox is in the last days...

Great bus for a 10 hour night ride...

10 hours later after endless stops in freaking dirty shit holes, after endless bumpy roads, after endless close near collisions, after no sleep at all but still with all of my bags we arrive at 4:00 am somewhere in Varanasi. And here we go again...the tuk tuk touts coming from all corners....Ahhh...

I take the punt and jump into to one and wonder to which dark alley he will bring me and rob me - it is dark and already 30 degree and I hadn't have any proper food nor sleep for the last 24 hours.
But there is hope:  he drops me in the Old City close to the police station and gives me proper change - wow. The last km is on foot through the narrow alleys of the Old City. This time I love the Lonely Planet. He gives me a name of a guesthouse and I find somebody who is willing to find it for me - for cash of course. Knocking on heavens door, some friendly Indians tell me the guest house is booked out but some people will leave in the morning and I am welcome to have a shower, lie in the hammock and enjoy the morning ritual over the mighty Ganges. Welcome to Varanasi.

6am: Good Morning Varanasi - the mighty toxic Ganges

Trisuli: Lessons of the day - level 3+ is the limit

I just came back from some days of refreshing my kayak skills on the river Trisuli at the Royal Beach Camp. We picked the middle section of the river which is usually level 1* and 2 with maybe some level 3 white water. Well, usually...this time the water was rising as the monsoon is around the corner and the rain had started, hence the water levels were rising and the river showed a lot of movement. The big rapid has swollen to a level 4+ while there were some solid level 3 + rapids. Still hardly exciting for rafting but more than enough to freshen up my flat water kayak skills. 

The last day's lesson were:

1. if it looks rough, there is good chance that it is rough
2. if you capsize and hang upside down in a kayak with your head under water and your lower body is  tight set in a plastic shell, it is very dark - well black to be accurate thanks to a lot of squirreling sand
3. if lessons 1 and 2 apply within a level 3+ rapid, your heart rate goes up quickly (while you are racing down streams)
4. if lesson 3 applies you are likely to forget your eskimo roll skills (or loose your paddle or both)
5. if lesson 4 applies your only option to survive is to pull the deck and swim
6. if lesson 5 applies you will swim as fast as you've never done before (and if you are lucky the safety kayaker and instructor will pick you, your boat and your paddle up a couple of hundreds of meter down the stream just before the next big rapid)
7. if you approach a level 4+ rapid and your instructor offers you and your kayak a lift in a raft, you should be grateful, accept the offer and understand that level 3+ is your limit

Anyway, I only swam through one of the big rapids but got through the others - great time with a great instructor and thank you for getting me out of my comfort zone every second minute.

*river grading: level 1 = easy to level 5 = very difficult, level 6 = not managable, suicidal

Royal Beach Camp Nepal

Training synchronised eskimo rolling in flat water does not really help...

...to get you through these waters.

 but hitchhiking helps 

Nepali life vest: 2 bottles on a string

Pokhara: Lessons of the day

Lessons learnt today:

1. if there is no uplift, do not paraglide

2. if your weight is more than 80kg and rule No 1 applies, do not paraglide
3. if you ignore rules No 1 and No 2, you may scrape the trees with your feet

Looking up is better than...

...looking down.
At least one glider was below me! (he started 20min before me)

Guess I booked the tree top walk, not the paraglide today...

4. If rules No 1 to 3 apply, it does not mean that you end up in the tree

Lesson for tomorrow: white water kayaking, stay tuned.